A Conversation with Jennifer Kent (THE BABADOOK 10th ANNIVERSARY)
Australian director Jennifer Kent directed her first feature, The Babadook, in 2014. That supernatural horror film proved extremely effective at externalizing both grief and a mother’s worst fears about parenting. Starring Essie Davis (Babyteeth) as that mom, Amelia, a widow whose husband died on the way to the hospital for her to give birth. Their son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), is now 6 years old, and a handful. When a mysterious pop-up book appears in the house, the act of reading it unleashes a powerful demon who becomes stronger the more his presence is denied. Things quickly go from bad to worse and it looks like Amelia may give in to the monster’s whispered urgings to make things right through violence. The result is a terrifying journey into the darkest recesses of our souls, and a very satisfying cinematic experience.
On September 19 of this year, Iconic Events Releasing and IFC Films are partnering on a 10th-anniversary re-release of the film. I had a chance to speak with Kent ahead of that re-release. What follows is a transcript of that interview, edited for length and clarity.
HtN: I’m a fan of this film, as well as of The Nightingale, your follow-up. But I remember very well the mantra they drilled into us in film school: never work with children or animals. And yet you chose to include both in your debut feature. Did you hesitate at all before launching into the idea because of that?
Jennifer Kent: (laughs) Look, because I’d trained as an actor for so many years and worked as an actor, I was less terrified, I think. And I’d acted as a kid, not professionally, but I knew what to look for when I was casting Sam. I was scared, for sure. But you’ve got to tell the story. And we just worked very hard. I think we auditioned maybe 400 or 500 boys for that role and took our time. So we had close to a year. And when I saw Noah—I remember his audition—he mimed opening and closing. He’d never acted before, but his inner world was very complex and detailed, and I thought, this kid’s going to be great.
HtN: I’m very impressed that you cast an actual 6-year-old, because they tell you to always cast older since they’re emotionally smarter because of their age, but you didn’t go in that direction. What specifically did you see in Noah that made you want him?
JK: I think there was a quality in Noah that was very emotionally intelligent. He had huge amounts of empathy. So I only had to describe what Sam was going through. I used to say to him, “Imagine if your mom never listened to you and you were right.” And he would sit there and I could see his face taking that in and saying, “Yeah, yeah!” He could really place himself in Sam’s shoes. And the more he did that, the more love and support he would get from me to go there.
I remember there was one scene where he has to yell at his mom and stomp up the stairs and then slam the door. And he was not quite getting it, not quite getting it. And then every take, I just gave him more support and permission because for a child to be angry, that’s taboo. And then he got to a point where he just nailed it and then stormed up the stairs and slammed the door. And then he came back down and he said, “I was so good. I was so good.” And he was telling everyone, and he told everyone at lunch, “I was so good,” and my heart just melted because, I mean, can you imagine a professional adult actor going up and telling everyone how good they were? But for Noah, he was learning something very good about himself and about the world. So it was such a precious experience working with that boy. It was really very special.
HtN: And how did you find the lovely dog, Bugsy?
Noah Wiseman in Jennifer Kent’s THE BABADOOK. Courtesy of Matt Nettheim. An IFC Films Release.
JK: The lovely Bugsy was auditioned along with everyone else. I’m a big dog lover. I love animals and I’ve got a dog and two cats. Bugsy was less trained than we actually hoped once we got on set. But we made it through and there were some genius moments. I remember one moment that was just gold. He was there and he was looking at Amelia off camera and Sam was asleep, and the dog just went and put his paw over Sam as if to say, “Back off.” There were just these moments of gold in there that were not actually trained moments.
HtN: He works well in the finished film.
JK: He’s great on screen. One of my favorite actors in The Nightingale was the bullock that we had. He was a beautiful actor. I do love working with animals. I mean, it’s hard, but so are children.
HtN: So I’ve seen your short film “Monster” and I understand how that evolved into the feature version of The Babadook. But where did the actual word “Babadook” come from?
JK: I wanted a word that sounded made up, like a kid made it up and that was nonsensical so that it didn’t actually mean anything. People have attributed meaning to it, but it really didn’t have any meaning beyond sounding like a good word to say. I was just testing the waters. And then that came into my head. I wanted something that had an onomatopoeic quality and that could rhyme with other words. And so that just came from somewhere.
HtN: And it’s really creepy on the phone, especially when that voice comes through.
JK: Yes, yes, that’s true. I mean, it has those sounds to it, as well, that can be stretched.
HtN: So what drew you to the work of illustrator Alex Juhasz? How did you come across him? Because that pop-up book, which you later sold limited copies of, is amazing.
JK: It is. I was really blown away by his work. We did get a few illustrators and artists in before him that were local to Australia—and nothing against Australian artists, since we have incredibly fine artists—but it just didn’t feel right. And then as soon as I saw Alex’s work, we just reached out to him. He lives in America and came to Australia. And it was really important for me because the book design bleeds out to the design of the house and then to the world of the film. So we needed to start with the book first. And so that’s why he came out quite early on and we housed him and fed him, and he worked for a long time on that book to get it as beautiful as it is.
HtN: It’s fascinating to me that you started with that because usually one starts with the production designer and then one brings on the cinematographer, but you started with that kernel of the book, which makes sense for your film.
JK: And Alex was an artist who could also take direction. Some artists are like, “This is my thing. This is my interpretation. Take it or leave it.” But Alex was very able and willing to be directed, if that makes sense.
HtN: You worked with both your Director of Photography, Radek Ladczuk, and Production Designer, Alex Holmes, on The Nightingale, as well. What was it about their style and aesthetic that you especially liked?
Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman in Jennifer Kent’s THE
BABADOOK. Courtesy of Matt Nettheim. An IFC Films Release.
JK: Whenever I have a new project that looks like it’s a “go,” I always contact them first and say, “Hey, I’ve got a project that looks like it’s going to go next year. Can you keep some time free?” We are looking at an adaptation of a horror book at the moment, and Alex, the designer, read it and we’re talking about it. Because it informs the whole process: how much is the budget, for example; how little can we do this for?
But in terms of how we met, I found Radek through an Israeli friend who had worked with him. Alex, I found through the producer of The Babadook, who he’s married to. I worked on Lars von Trier’s Dogville, and I saw that he had collected a family of people that he was very faithful to. And I was so impressed by that. It gives you a shorthand together. You don’t have long on a film set; you don’t have many days to make a film. So any existing history that’s collaborative and really solid helps the film. And I’m also just a loyal person. We all made The Babadook for nothing, and it’s such an artful film, why not work together again?
HtN: That makes a lot of sense. So horror, along with sci-fi, is such a great way to tackle real-world problems with the buffer of genre tropes. And I look at The Babadook and it’s this wonderful cinematic metaphor for the long arm of unresolved trauma as well as of the difficulties of parenting. Is that how you see the film?
JK: Well, I was grieving. I lost my dad, and it was the first big loss in my life. And I approached it from my own experience, not so much intellectually of, “Oh, what’s this film about on an intellectual level?,” but more about how I felt. This is really tough going through this, but you feel the necessity of it as a human being. It’s a rite of passage. And then my mind went to how people relate to others grieving. And often you can only really respond to grief on the level that you’ve grieved. And so I noticed a lot of people pushing down on their feelings, saying, “Oh, well, you’ll be all right. It was his time.” Or whatever the platitudes are.
And then I thought, “Wow, what if someone wasn’t able to grieve?” It was just so painful and so awful that they couldn’t go through the process, that it was stymied in some way or blocked. And that’s how the idea came about. And then everything sprung from there. And hopefully a film or a story has different resonances for different people. But that’s what it was for me in starting it. That’s where it came from.
HtN: Well, I’m very sorry for your loss prior to making the film.
JK: I mean, we all go through it. Amelia’s loss is particularly awful because it was traumatic. And I really feel for people who lose loved ones in a violent or a tragic way like that. I have a lot of compassion for that experience.
HtN: And Essie Davis does such a wonderful job making that grief manifest. She’s terrific in your film. So, this was your first feature. What lessons did you learn making it that you then applied to The Nightingale, which is a completely different kind of film?
JK: Well, I knew I could make a film and finish it. I didn’t know that before The Babadook. So there was a confidence there. I think The Nightingale was a much bigger film, a much more ambitious film. It had over 17 locations and most of them were in the wilderness, dealing with weather, which was very challenging. But I don’t think I could have made that first. I wouldn’t have had the sort of inner confidence to deal with it. I was pretty stubborn on getting what I needed for The Babadook, and I was more stubborn on The Nightingale, so I learned to be more stubborn and just to protect a film. We are, as directors, in service to the film. So what I learned is just to protect it with your life. Very important.
HtN: I think that’s why both of those films are so strong, because they’re coming from your artistic integrity. I can’t wait to see whatever feature you make next.
JK: It looks like next year. That’s what we’re aiming for.
HtN: Well, I’ll be there to watch it and review it! Thanks for talking to me. And happy 10th anniversary to The Babadook. Congratulations.
JK: Thank you. Lovely to chat with you.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
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